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The (Surprising) Meaning and Purpose of Yom Kippur

The (Surprising) Meaning and Purpose of Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement – but what does that mean? What is the purpose of Yom Kippur? After all, we also define Yom Kippur as one of the Days of Awe – but what does forgiveness of our sins have to do with awe? What should Yom Kippur really mean to us?

From Yom Kippur Torah readings, Acharei Mot explains it is the one day of the year we can directly connect with God, recreating the experiences of Sinai and the tabernacle. It is through this contact with God on Yom Kippur that we are purified of our sins and we emerge reborn and pure.

We start to see that the primary purpose of Yom Kippur is to let God envelop us with his presence, which in turn creates forgiveness as a byproduct. There is no magic wand to wipe away our sins, but through this closeness with God and our efforts to let go of our sins, we can find a deeper meaning of Yom Kippur.

In this Yom Kippur video, Rabbi Fohrman challenges how we think about the purpose of Yom Kippur and how this defines the meaning of Yom Kippur.

The word 'yamim nora'im' is 'days of awe': Rosh Hashana, Jewish New Year, Yom Kippur, and what exactly is awe anyway? Is it fear? It's not quite fear. How would we define the feeling of awe and why would we associate awe with something like Yom Kippur? Now if you've ever been to synagogue on Yom Kippur you know that the liturgy is very solemn but if you think about what's actually happening on this day, it's a day when we achieve a forgiveness for our sins. That's a wonderful thing. That's a good thing, that's a happy thing. Why should that be associated with fear or awe? Why is Yom Kippur one of the 'yamim nora'im'? I think the answer may lie in this week's Parsha.

Put yourself in God's shoes and imagine that were the writer of the Torah and that you were going to introduce the world to the idea of Yom Kippur. How would you do it? I'd get right down to the point; and God said to Moshe, saying, tell everyone, there's going to be this wonderful day when once a year I will purify you and I will forgive you of your sins. Something like that. You'd give the date, you'd give the time, you'd close with a suitable exhortation but that's not the way Yom Kippur is introduced.

Our Parsha introduces Yom Kippur that does not introduce Yom Kippur like that at all. Here is the very strange introduction that we actually get to the day that we now call Yom Kippur. "Vayomer HaShem el-Moshe," and God said to Moshe, "daber el-Aharon achicha," tell Aaron, the high priest, "al-yavo b'chol et el-ha-kodesh," tell him not to come into the inner most sanctum of the holy tabernacle any time that he wants, "mi-beyt l'parochet."

Where is that place? It's behind the curtain. There was a curtain that would separate the holy of the holies from the rest of the tabernacle, "el-pnei ha-kaporet," as he would go through the curtain, he would come close to the "kaporet" the covering over the ark, "asher al-ha-aron v'lo yamut." Tell him not to do this all the time, so that he doesn't die, "ki be'anan ereh al-ha-kaporet," because I, appear in a cloud, God says, over this covering, over the ark. "B'zot yavo Aharon el-ha-kodesh." I have a better idea, God says. This is how Aaron, should come to the holy of holies and then the verses launch into this very long and detailed procedure through which Aaron can come into the holy of holies.

Now did you hear anything about Yom Kippur? Neither did I. At the very end of this long, long list of procedures, we finally find out when all of these happens. "V'hayta lachem lekuchat olam," you should do this procedure, forever, "b'chodesh ha-shvi'I," it should take place on the seventh month, that would be Tishrei, "b'asor la'chodesh," on the 10th day of the month. And when you do this, "ta'anu et-nafshoteichem," you should fast when you do this. "V'chol mlacha lo ta'asu," you shouldn't do any 'mlacha,' you shouldn't do any work, "ki b'yom ha-zeh yechaper aleichem l'taher etchem," because on this day, God will forgive you, will purify you, "mi-kol chata'otecha, lifnei HaShem titharu," for all of your sins, you will be purified.

Oh, one second, wasn't that on the topic sentence? Shouldn't that have been all the way back at the beginning? Isn't this the main point? Why are you not even getting to this until the end?

The way the Torah introduces Yom Kippur to us seems to be topsy-turvy. Don't come into the Kodesh this way, come into the Kodesh that way. Long, long list and finally, ah! You should do this every Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a day when you get forgiven of sins, isn't that what it's really all about?

What's the logic describing Yom Kippur the way the Torah actually does? Maybe the answer is that Yom Kippur isn't really what we think it is about. Maybe it is primarily not about forgiveness of sins. Maybe that's the secondary effect of something else that's primary. What's it primarily about? Listen to the very first words of this week's Parsha and maybe we will see. "Vayedaber HaShem el-Moshe acharei mot shnei bnei Aharon." God spoke to Moshe after the death of the two sons of Aaron. "B'karvatam lifnei HaShem vayamutu." How did they die? They died when they try to come close before God. That's how they died. What did they do, they brought incense from the incense alter into the holy of holies and they died. What does it mean? How were they trying to come close to God? Ah, where is God?

"Vayomer HaShem el-Moshe," God said to Moshe, "daber el-Aharon achicha," tell Aaron, "al-yavo b'chol et el-ha-kodesh," do not always come into the holy of holies this way, "mi-beyt l-paroche," inside the curtain, "el-pnei ha-kaporet," near the covering of the Holy Ark, "v'lo yamut," lest you die. It's very dangerous, you could die by doing that. Why? "Ki be'anan ereh al-ha-kaporet," because I, God, am there. I am in a cloud, hovering over the cover of the ark. When else was God in a cloud? Exodus 24, verse 16, "vayishkon kavod HaShem al-har Sinai," the glory of God, rested on mount Sinai, "v'yechasehu he'anan." God's cloud covered the mountain and there too, the Ten Commandments, the tablets of the law…and what's inside the ark?

The same Ten Commandments. Now they're inside the tabernacle and there again, is God's cloud, hovering over the ark. What the children of Aaron tried to do is come close to God, they tried to recreate the Sinai experience. They tried to approach God's cloud hovering over the ark but they did it in a way that God didn't command. God says I am going to give you a chance to be able to do, successfully, what they tried to do unsuccessfully. Once a year you can do this, once a year you can recreate Sinai, once a year your cloud can merge with my cloud. Listen to what Aaron does: "v'natan et ha-ktoret," he takes the incense, "al-ha-esh lifnei HaShem," he puts it on fire and there's this cloud of smoke from the incense. "V'chisa anan ha-ktoret," and this man-made cloud of incense, covers the kaporet, covers the upper covering of the ark, "asher al-ha-edut," which is on top of the Ten Commandments.

"V'lo yamut," and he will not die. Where was God? God was in a cloud over the ark and now, there's another cloud over the ark. The human cloud merges with the divine cloud. It's the moment of contact, the most dangerous moment, the moment that you could die, 'v'lo yamut' but do it this way and you will not die. The imperative for this is not forgiveness. You don't do this as a means to some end, you do this as an end in and of itself. Why do we connect to God? Because we connect to God. Because he's our source, because we want our cloud merge with God's cloud. We don't want the Sinai experience, to be a one-off experience in history. We want to recreate it year after year, that direct contact.

That's why it is a day of awe. To directly encounter your creator, the one from beyond, the master of the universe, who made the world? The emotion you have at that possibility is not quite fear but it very surely is awe. Awe is the sense of being so small in the presence of something so large, so overwhelming. Yes, recreating the Sinai experience is an end in of itself but nevertheless that has a by-product too.

"Ki b'yom ha-zeh yechaper aleichem." The by-product comes at the end, the by-product is forgiveness. On this day, God will forgive you, he will purify you from all of your sins. How is forgiveness a by-product of contact with the almighty? Look at the word, for forgiveness: yechaper, chaf, pey, resh. Where else do we have that word, in this whole story of what you do on Yom Kippur? That route which we take to mean forgiveness actually was an object in the mishkan, an object which has pride of place in this procedure, in this avoda which Aaron does on Yom Kippur. Over and over again, we hear about this thing in the mishkan. We hear about it seven times in the Torah's account of this avoda. It's the 'kaporet,' the covering of the ark.

The clouds merge over the kaporet. The kaporet is not a forgiveness thing, it's a covering. What if the other way to read the verse about forgiveness. How? What's the mechanism of forgiveness? "Ki b'yom ha-zeh yechaper aleichem," today God covers over you. You come into contact with God when the cloud of the divine merges with the cloud of incense. God covers us, we become enveloped by God himself. God takes us in, "l'taher etchem," and that has a by-product. It purifies you. We are washed clean by the encounter. "Lifnei HaShem titharu," before God, you are washed clean.

There is a mechanism to Yom Kippur. Forgiveness doesn't come out of the blue, it's not that God waves a magic wand and you are forgiven. You have to let go of your sins but even after you let go, you are still sullied by the action, you still feel dirtied by it. How do you become washed clean? Through contact, contact with your maker. Rabbi Akiva said it. "Ashreichem Yisrael," fortunate you oh Israel, "lifnei mi atem metaharim u-mi metaher etchem," before whom do you become washed clean, and who washes you clean?

It's exactly the same thing, the mikva envelopes you. It's like the amniotic fluid. It covers you all over and you emerge reborn, pure. Once a year, God himself envelops the entire people like a mikva and if we can but let go of our sins, we too can emerge from the encounter, unsullied, pure as a newborn child.

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